


Glitter in the Grey

by crowning_glory



Series: ❧ jaren [1]
Category: Mean Girls (2004), Mean Girls - Richmond/Benjamin/Fey
Genre: Absent Parents, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-10-29 01:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17798315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowning_glory/pseuds/crowning_glory
Summary: ♕Janis's world is crumbling. Karen is the only one who gets it.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> →I'm going to give a blanket warning for the discussion of absent parents in this fic. It's one of the main themes, and I understand that it can, rightly, be a touchy subject for some people so please be careful. And also a warning for vomiting in this chapter. As far as I am aware there are no other trigger warnings needed for this story, but if I find any that I have missed I will include them in a chapter specific warning. If you find anything I miss, please let me know and I will tag it appropriately! 
> 
>  
> 
> Enjoy!

**One**

* * *

**  
**

A knock on Janis’s door wakes her up, and she lets out a quiet groan in response. The first thing she’s aware of is a dull ache in her lower back and the next is that she’d fallen asleep, face resting on her keyboard, at her desk again for the third time this week. She’s just starting to sit up when her door creaks open and her dad pokes his head around, his face softening when he spots the keyboard indents on Janis’s cheek.

 

“Jan, we’ve talked about this,” he sighs as he crosses the room, kneeling beside her. She resists the urge to roll her eyes. “If school is giving you so much work that you’re constantly falling asleep at your desk then we really need to go in and talk to them.”

 

“It’s not school, dad,” Janis shakes her head. “I was just up late last night looking at things again. I promise I won’t do it again.”

 

He tilts his head a little, almost as if he doesn’t believe her. “Okay,” he says, and Janis is relieved that he didn’t question her. “Maybe you should make a habit of using your laptop on your bed if you’re not doing schoolwork on it. That way this doesn’t keep happening. It’s not good for your back.”

 

“I know and I’m sorry,” she stretches her arms above her head, glancing at the clock on her wall. “What are you doing up so early?”

 

“They need me at work,” he says sheepishly. Janis frowns, opening her mouth to protest but she can’t get a word out before he starts speaking again. “Yeah. I know we were supposed to go to the mall today so you could pick out a new winter coat but I, unfortunately, can’t get out of this. We can go tomorrow if you’d like? Or Damian and Cady can go with you today?”

 

“Damian’s at his grandma’s this weekend and Cady’s out of town with her parents. But, uh, going tomorrow is fine though,” Janis lies. “I don’t mind.”

 

“Alright, kiddo,” He stands up, holding out his hand to help Janis from her chair. “Get into bed now, okay? I’ll see you later. There’s painkillers in the medicine cabinet if your back hurts.”

 

“Okay. Bye,” Janis watches him leave, closing her door behind him.

 

Janis doesn’t know what to think of her dad at the moment. She loves him, of course she does, but she can’t help but hate the amount he’s been working recently. It’s been almost three months since Janis’s mom left, just opened the door and walked out leaving the pair of them in the dust with no explanation and no goodbye, and Janis needs him more than ever but he’s always working, always cancelling plans that the two of them make.

 

It’s shitty.

 

He wants to get out of the house and Janis gets that—everything reminds her of her mom too—but it still hurts, and she just wishes that he’d put her first for once. He’ll say that he is, that he’s working so much overtime so he can put more money into her college fund or something, but Janis doesn’t believe that. And it’s not that he doesn’t care about her, Janis knows that she’s the most important thing in his life, but she just wishes that he’d show it more. Especially now.

 

Sighing, she pushes her chair back under her desk, grabs her laptop and flops onto her bed. Their cat, named Jay Catsby by Janis’s dad who’d thought it was hilarious, moves from his spot at the foot of Janis’s bed to curl up on her legs and she absent-mindedly pets him as she waits for her laptop to switch on again.

 

Once it does and she types in her password, her stomach flutters as she restores the tabs she had open on Chrome and Karen Smith’s Facebook profile pops up. Her friend request is still on pending—it is only five-thirty in the morning so she doesn’t expect anything different—and the message tab is still up with Janis’s half-written, unsent message. She scans over it again, deletes it and unsends the friend request, slamming her laptop shut with more force than necessary. Jay looks at her startled when she bursts into tears.

 

Why did Janis ever think that that was a good idea? Asking Karen Smith about how to deal with her mom leaving was probably one of the worst things she could ever do. It had made sense last night when Janis’s chest ached so badly that she couldn’t sleep, and tears were a constant running down her cheeks. Karen had gone through the same thing when they were eleven. Regina was relentless in teasing her about it, bringing it up every time Karen didn’t please her— _“God, Karen, you’re so stupid. Maybe that’s why your mom left!”_ — and at one in the morning when Janis was hurting, Karen was the first person her mind went to.

 

She doesn’t know why because now she feels even worse and there’s no one else but Karen to talk to about this.

 

Damian would listen but he wouldn’t necessarily understand. The same with Cady. Whilst Damian’s dad had left too, it was before Damian was born and whilst that was shitty, it wasn’t the same. Janis can empathise with him having one parent, but she can’t even start to imagine the hurt that Damian feels about having never met him.

 

Sometimes Janis thinks it would have been easier if her mom hadn’t waited sixteen years to leave.

 

Damian often says that he has nothing to miss. Janis says that she has too much.

 

Wiping her cheeks, Janis pulls her laptop onto her lap again and reopens the page. It’s a stupid idea and she knows that this will get back to Regina but she needs to at least try. If it backfires then it backfires and she’ll deal with that when it gets there.

 

She takes a deep breath and types out a message, hitting send before she can back out of sending it.

Then, almost instantly she gets a reply.

 

A response that she wasn’t expecting. Especially this early in the morning. Looking at the time on her laptop, she decides to chance it. The worst that Karen can do is say no and they’ll just reschedule it for a later time.

Once again, Karen’s responses are almost immediate and a couple of seconds later Karen sends her phone number. Janis’s hands are shaking as she keys it in and she almost forgets how to breathe when Karen picks it up on the fourth ring, giving Janis a quiet hello.

 

“My dad is asleep,” she whispers. “So I have to be quiet.”

 

“Yeah, no, I get that,” Janis says and she’s whispering as well. She doesn’t know why; it’s not as if her dad is asleep, but it just feels like what she should do. “Um. Do you miss your mom?”

 

There’s a beat of silence on the other end. “Yeah,” Karen admits. “Like, a lot. Did, uh, did your mom say goodbye?”

 

“No.”

 

“Mine neither.”

 

“How did you deal with it?” Janis asks next, falling back onto her pillows as Jay climbs onto her lap. “Some days I don’t even want to get out of bed because I don’t want to face it all.”

 

“You just have to get on with it,” Karen sniffs. “Dad says that there’s no point getting upset about it because she’s obviously not upset or else she'd come back or get in contact or something, and he also says that she’s not worth our tears, but I don’t really believe that. I think it’s good to cry, Janis, if you want to.”

 

And Janis does want to cry. She really, really wants to cry. But she can’t whilst she’s on the phone with Karen because, for all she knows, Regina and Gretchen are there in the corner snickering at her and the last thing she wants to do is give them the satisfaction of hearing her cry.

 

“I won’t tell Regina, Janis,” Karen continues, almost as if she'd read Janis's mind. “You were the only one who didn’t make fun of me for my mom leaving and, um, I don’t think that you’re mean like Regina says. Um. Can you keep a secret?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“I don’t really like Regina,” Karen says. Janis can hear the tremble in her voice, and she opens her mouth to comfort the girl, only to be cut off. “She treats everyone badly. Even her mom. Even though she’s lucky to still have one,” Janis’s stomach sinks at that, and Karen inhales sharply before carrying on, “I think what she did to you was awful and I’m scared she’s going to do something like that to me one day.”

 

“She might,” Janis murmurs and it briefly crosses her mind how ridiculous this whole situation is. She’s on the phone to a Plastic. And the Plastic is telling her how much she hates Regina. It feels so much like a trap, and maybe it is, but right now Janis doesn’t care.

 

“Do you still have pictures of your mom?” Karen asks. Janis is glad for the change of subject. Kind of. “My dad let me choose my favourite ones and took down the rest a couple of weeks after she left. Said it would be better for us not to see her constantly every day. I think it was. Is. I still love her but...”

 

“Yeah, I get that. And, um, we do,” Janis answers. Her head has started to hurt, and Jay is painfully kneading her thighs. “I don’t think dad has the heart to take them down. But I—I wish he would sometimes. Seeing her face—seeing us all happy and smiling—it doesn’t feel good sometimes.”

 

“This is… this is weird,” Karen says, and it catches Janis off guard even though she’s been thinking the exact same thing. “I—Regina would kill me if she knew I was doing this. She, um, she doesn’t by the way. Just in case you were wondering.”

 

“And you’re not going to tell her?”

 

“If I did you’d never see me again,” Karen laughs bitterly. “I gotta go, Janis, but it was nice to talk to you again. If you would ever… if you want to be friends then I would be okay with that. I think.”

 

“We’ll see, Karen,” Janis says. Her stomach is hurting. “Bye.”

 

“Bye.”

 

Janis doesn’t feel any better when Karen hangs up and she drops her phone onto her covers before pushing away her laptop as well. She picks up Jay, feeling slightly guilty as she puts him down away from her, and waits for a wave of nausea to pass before she stands and makes her way to the bathroom.

 

The coldness of the tiles feels good against her bare feet and after she swallows the painkillers she curls up on the floor. She hasn’t bothered to lock the door and she can’t find the energy in her to get up and do it so she just stares across the hallway and into her dad’s room. She falls asleep staring at one of his bedposts. The one where her mom’s robe used to hang.

* * *

She wakes up a few hours later, groggy and disoriented. There’s a minute or so of pure confusion before the memories come rushing back and suddenly Janis is lurching towards the toilet, managing to push the lid up before she vomits.

 

Karen. Janis had called Karen and confided in her about her mom.

 

How fucking stupid was she? Everything that she told Karen will go back to Regina. Everything she’d told Karen would haunt her even more than it already was. And maybe she hadn’t cared at 5 AM but she cares now.

 

Karen had said that she wouldn’t tell Regina but could she really be trusted? What if they were at a sleepover—there was nothing to suggest that Regina wasn’t there. She could’ve been. Gretchen too, fake nails tapping at her phone screen as she detailed Janis’s grief in the notes app on her iPhone.

 

Janis shudders at the thought and stands shakily, flushing the toilet before brushing her teeth and taking another painkiller to dull her still throbbing head.

 

Jay meows somewhere out in the hallway and Janis leaves the bathroom, supporting herself on the wall. Just seeing her cat makes her feel a little bit better, and she almost bursts into tears as he rubs himself against her ankles. She knows that he’s just in it for the food, though, and as soon as she takes a step towards the stairs he hurtles off, meowing when she takes too long to get to the kitchen.

 

She brews herself some coffee once Jay has been fed, and sits at the table with her hands wrapped around her mom’s favourite mug. Janis doesn’t even realise until she’s almost done, and she blinks away tears when she does. This all has to be a sick joke; the universe is taunting her about her awful decision this morning.

 

Janis doesn’t even bother getting dressed or brushing her hair, making herself comfortable on the sofa, watching shitty movies until her dad gets home.

 

He doesn't cook anymore so Janis isn't surprised when he holds up the takeout he'd gotten as he toes off his shoes. They have it almost every night unless Janis can be bothered to cook something, and every time she tries to challenge it she's snapped at because he 'works so hard', and he just 'doesn't have time' to cook.

 

They make small talk as they sit down at the table. Her dad fetches two plates, dishing up the take out. His eyes keep flicking up to Janis when he finally sits down to eat and Janis has figured out what he's going to say before he even says it.

 

“Hey, kiddo. I’m so—”

 

He doesn’t have a chance to finish his sentence before Janis interrupts him.

 

“Let me guess,” she says bitterly. “They need you at work tomorrow so you can’t go to the mall with me. We’ll have to do it another time.”

 

Mr. Sarkisian frowns. “Drop the attitude,” he warns. “They need me—”

 

“And I don’t?!” Janis shouts, smacking her hand on the table. There’s a crash as her chair falls over. She holds up her hands as he opens his mouth to argue. “Why don’t you just go ahead and live at the office, huh? Since it’s so important for you to be there. But hey, at least if you leave I can say that I saw it coming.” The last sentence is practically dripping with venom.

 

Her dad flinches at that. Janis doesn’t feel bad about saying it, though. This has been a long time coming and she’s honestly surprised that it’s taken her this long to crack.

 

“You’re just trying to run away from it all,” she points out, jabbing a finger towards him. “And it’s not fair. Have you ever stopped to think about me at all? Mom left me too. You’re not the only one she decided to abandon.”

 

Then Janis whirls around on her heel, stomping out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Her dad doesn’t call after her but if he had Janis wouldn’t have answered him anyway.

 

Jay looks up from where he’s curled up on her bed when she slams her door shut, locking it behind her. He butts his nose gently against Janis’s forehead as she lays on top of her covers, sobbing loudly and he purrs as he settles against Janis’s side, paws kneading her duvet cover, make her feel a tiny bit better. She cries until she can’t anymore, until her cheeks sting, and she stares blankly at the wall in front of her once she’s calmer.

 

She doesn’t feel bad for what she’d said to her dad. It was something that he needed to hear, and she’s glad that she finally said it. But she just hopes that he listens. They need to talk it out, Janis knows that, and he’s probably willing to do it right now but she can’t face him just yet. It’s been a while since she’s shouted at her dad and she doesn’t exactly know what his reaction is going to be. Whether he'll yell at her back or not.

 

She stays curled up on her bed until she hears her dad go to bed. He pauses outside her bedroom for a few seconds and Janis is scared that he’s going to knock and force her to talk to him, but he doesn’t. And when she opens her door after his clicks shut, she’s greeted with a plate of warmed-up Chinese food and a handwritten note asking for forgiveness and that he's cancelled his shift if she wants to go to the mall tomorrow.

 

Janis takes the plate, sitting at her desk as she wolfs it down. When she’s done she leaves her room and heads to the bathroom where she sits under the hot water from the shower and reflects on the awful day that she’s had.

 

Once she’s ready for bed she crawls under her covers and FaceTimes Damian. She listens to him recount his day and gives him a heavily edited version of hers. She completely omits the part where she’d talked to Karen, but she does tell him about what she’d yelled at her dad.

 

“Good on you,” Damian says. “He deserves to know what he’s doing is hurting you.”

 

“Yeah, I guess,” Janis shrugs. “But I don’t know whether to take him up on his offer.”

 

“Go,” Damian tells her. “Hear him out and then tell him how you feel. You need to talk things out, hon. It’s way overdue.”

 

“It is,” Janis murmurs, pulling her covers up to her chin. “I’ll think about it in the morning. But I think I’m going to try and get an early night. Today has been exhausting.”

 

“Let me know how it goes if you do go, okay? Night, sweet girl,” Damian says and hangs up.

 

Janis sets an alarm, leaves her phone on her bedside table and stares at the ceiling, exhausted but not able to fall asleep. She doesn’t know whether or not she’s going to go with her dad. She wants to. To let him know how and what she feels because she deserves to let that be known.

 

God. If her mom knew what a mess she'd caused by leaving them behind she'd probably be disappointed. Or was that what she wanted? Maybe chaos was exactly what she'd planned.

 

Janis has no way of knowing. No one but her mom does.

 

There’s a brief moment of wanting to call Karen before she finally falls asleep, a solid minute of having to force herself not to grab her phone and dial her number. Sure, so far there have been no repercussions for calling Karen but maybe the Plastics are just waiting until school on Monday. Waiting to humiliate her in the lunch hall because they haven't humiliated her enough at school already.

 

When she does fall asleep, she dreams of her mom. Of strawberry scented shampoo and warm hugs. Of state fairs and trips to the movies.

 

Of the last time that she was truly happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> →Updates every three days!
> 
> thank you for reading! ♥
> 
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	2. Two

**Two**

* * *

 

 

Janis doesn’t end up going with her dad to the mall. She stays in her room for most of the day, only leaving when she’s sure that she’s not going to run into him, and she spends four hours on FaceTime to Damian.

 

;He understands why she didn’t end up going and the two of them talk mostly about school. Cady joins the call after four hours and they work on a project that they have due soon for another two. It’s not the best of days, but it hasn’t been as bad as yesterday so Janis will take it. She and Damian make plans to hang out tomorrow night once he gets home from his grandma’s because they haven’t seen each other since school got out of Friday and won’t see each other tomorrow at school and that’s way too long. They invite Cady but she politely declines.

 

When they finally hang up Janis is left on her own. She lounges on her bed, watches a few episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine on Netflix and pets Jay a little. Downstairs she hears her dad leave and rolls her eyes knowing that he’s probably gone to get takeout.

 

But when he gets back he doesn’t call for her right away, and she listens from the top of the stairs as he starts cooking. Maybe she’s not happy with him right now but it at least means something that he’s cooking again. Even if this is just a one-time thing.

 

Janis stays upstairs until she’s called down, and she hesitantly makes her way down the stairs. She’s hungry, and her stomach growls as she enters the kitchen, but she just doesn’t know what her dad is going to be like. Especially since she declined his invitation to go out this morning.

 

She's pleasantly surprised. He smiles when he sees her, although she doesn’t smile back, and gestures towards the set table.

 

“I know you’re mad at me, and you have a right to be,” he says. “But I’d appreciate it if you would sit with me and have some lasagna.”

 

“Sure,” she shrugs and takes her seat, staring down at her plate so to avoid eye contact with him. He’s right; she’s still mad at him, and she isn’t just going to forgive him because he cooked dinner for once.

 

“I heard you talking to Cady and Damian earlier,” he says after a minute or two of silence. “How are they? I haven’t seen them in a while.”

 

 _There’s a reason for that,_ Janis thinks but doesn’t say out loud. “They’re fine. I’m going over to Damian’s for dinner tomorrow night when he gets back.”

 

“Do you want a ride?”

 

“No, I’m good,” she shakes her head. “It’s a ten-minute walk tops. Thanks though.” She adds at the end, feeling just a little bit bad for shooting him down so quickly.

 

“Why is he coming back tomorrow night? What about school?”

 

“He always misses the Monday when he visits his grandma’s,” Janis shrugs.

 

Silence settles once again and Janis digs into her lasagna. It’s good and she savours it as much as she can, glad for a respite from takeout or cheap oven food. When she looks up her dad is smiling at her, and Janis tilts her head in way of asking why as her mouth is full.

 

“You look so much like your mother,” he says and it’s like all of the wind has been knocked out of her.

 

“Yeah,” she chokes out in response, swallowing the food around a newly-formed lump in her throat, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “So I’ve been told.”

 

“She loves you, you know?” He continues. His voice wavers. Janis has to blink back her own tears. “I’m not sure why she did what she did, but I can guarantee that she still loves you. You were her life.”

 

“Oh sure,” Janis rolls her eyes, mood quickly soured. “‘Course she loved me, dad. Loved me enough to leave and not look back. She doesn’t love us and you’re stupid to think that she does. If she does then she would still be here. I mean, yeah, maybe she did. But she doesn’t now. You don’t leave people that you love behind."

 

And maybe she doesn't quite believe that, but it's easier to be angry at her mom than it is anything else.

 

Janis’s dad shifts in his seat. “I still think that she loves us,” he says softly. “You’re just angry—”

 

“Don’t you think I have the right to be?” She demands, a familiar surge of anger coursing through her. She stays sat this time, though, trying to keep herself from repeating last night. “Just—just drop it, okay? I don’t want to talk about this now.”

 

She wants to talk about _him_ about his behaviour after her mom had left. Not about her mom. But she doesn’t dare bring it up because she’s already angry enough, and shouting at him more isn’t going to do anything but make the divide between them wider. That’s the exact opposite of what she wants.

 

They silence returns. They finish eating and Janis comments that the food was good before heading back up to her room. She finishes off some homework, packs her backpack for tomorrow and laments over wasting her entire weekend like she does every Sunday. Damian FaceTimes her to say goodnight and they talk for another twenty minutes. She doesn’t tell him about the dinner table conversation; she’ll do it tomorrow when they’re settled in his room.

 

Her dad knocks on her door just as she’s climbed into bed and when she hears her door creak open, she pretends to be asleep.

 

“Jan, it’s only 10. I know you’re not asleep,” he says, but Janis doesn’t move. “Well, I just wanted to apologise, okay? And to let you know that I’m going to try harder. Sleep tight, kiddo.”

 

And then Janis is left alone and falls asleep not too long after.

 

* * *

 

He’s already gone by the time Janis wakes up for school. She gets ready, feeds Jay, and then leaves.

 

The walk to school is a lonely one. Usually, she walks with Damian, both of them unwilling to subject themselves to sitting on the bus, but since he’s not home yet, it’s just her. She has her headphones in, music blasting whilst texting Cady to meet her at the school entrance for them to head to algebra together.

 

She’s just thankful that Cady isn’t hanging around with the Plastics anymore because she’s spent too much time in her life walking to classes and eating lunch alone. She still hasn’t made up with Regina, even after the Spring Fling and doesn’t see why she should. Nothing has changed. It was fine up until Regina was being weaned off of her pain meds and then she was back to normal. She kicked Cady out of the group and now continues to terrorise the school.

 

The only thing that had really changed was the other students’ opinion of Janis. But whilst they might not hate her anymore, they’re too scared to show it. She’ll catch people’s eyes in the corridor and they’ll smile at her, but no one new has come to sit at her lunch table and nobody is tripping over themselves to volunteer as project partners with her (except Damian, of course).

 

But that’s fine with her. At least she’s no longer so much of an outcast.

 

“Hey!” Cady grins as she jogs over. “How was your weekend?”

 

“It was good,” Janis lies. She’s too tired to explain everything that had happened now. “How was Madison?”

 

Cady screws up her face. “Boring,” she says, linking arms with Janis as they walk up the steps. “It was some sciencey convention thing. I mostly stayed in the hotel room.”

 

“Sounds riveting,” Janis snorts and the two of them make their way to class.

 

It goes smoothly until lunch. She leaves her French class with a promise to meet Cady in the lunchroom once she’s used the bathroom. Janis heads to the other side of the school to one of the less frequented bathrooms and she’s stood washing her hands when Karen Smith enters.

 

Janis is rooted to the spot, scrubbing her hands for longer than necessary as Karen moves into one of the stalls and she’s still at the sinks when Karen emerges and starts to wash her own hands. She catches Karen’s gaze in the mirror a couple of times and she finally pulls away to use the hand dryer when Karen speaks up.

 

“I’m glad you called the other morning,” she says and Janis feels a lump forming in her throat. “And I meant what I said about us being friends.”

 

“I’ll think about it,” Janis shrugs.

 

“My mom messaged me on Facebook this morning,” Karen says hurriedly, glancing towards the door. “And, um, I was wondering whether or not I should message her back.”

 

“What did she say?”

 

“That she’s sorry and she wants me to forgive her,” Karen says, looking down at her shoes. “But, um, I don’t think that’s going to happen right now.”

 

“Then tell her that,” Janis moves closer. “Her reaching out is at least something, but you don’t have to do what she says. And it’s a pretty bold demand for someone who’s been gone for six years,” she pauses. “We can write the message together if you want?”

 

And so she and Karen end up sitting against the wall in the girls’ bathroom drafting a text for most of the lunch period. Janis texts Cady to tell her that she’s been caught up and probably won’t make it to the cafeteria in time for a hot lunch, but that she’ll be fine and Cady should sit with her other friends.

 

They end up sharing Karen’s packed lunch, and Karen lies to Regina telling her that she has to resit a recent chemistry test. It’s just bizarre and Janis pinches herself a few times just to check that she’s not dreaming. Because Karen is actually being nice to her, and Janis, for once, doesn’t hate a Plastic’s guts. She helps Karen come up with a message, corrects the grammar and spelling and before she leaves, tells Karen to let her know when her mom gets back to her.

 

The only bad thing about it is that Janis leaves the bathroom with an ache of longing in her chest. God. She wishes that her mom would reach out and let her know she’s okay. Janis doesn’t want her to ask for forgiveness—she’s not sure she’ll ever forgive her, and if she asks for it it’ll make the guilt Janis already feels over it double—but it would be nice to know that she’s still alive.

 

She’s distracted for the rest of school. Cady notices but doesn’t pressure Janis into talking about it. Janis has been distracted a lot recently, that’s what happens when someone you love decides to leave.

 

They hug goodbye at Janis’s locker, Cady making her promise that she’ll text her if she needs anything. Janis nods, promises that she will, and then leaves to walk home.

 

Her dad’s car is in the driveway when she rounds the street corner. She smiles a little, excited to be able to spend some time with him before she has to head over to Damian’s. There’s enough time to watch a movie, or more than a few episodes of The Office. Janis doesn’t think she’s ready to talk everything out yet, not after the confusing ass day that she’s had, but it doesn’t mean that they can’t start working on trying to repair their relationship.

 

But when she enters the living room he’s fast asleep on the sofa. Janis sighs, let down by her own expectations, and heads upstairs to grab him a blanket.

 

Then she heads to her own bedroom, chucking her backpack into the corner before flopping onto her bed. A nap does sound good, but she doesn’t want to risk oversleeping and being late to Damian’s. So, instead, she microwaves some popcorn and watches The Office in her room with Jay curled on her lap. It was a show that they all used to watch together—all three of them—and she’s avoided watching it since her mom left. But she’s missed it and, watching it on her own, whilst feeling weird, also feels good.

 

“Hey, kid,” a voice behind her after about five episodes almost makes her spill the remaining popcorn. She whirls around to see her dad. He smiles at her and then gestures to the blanket around his shoulders. “Thanks for this. I’m sorry for falling asleep, though. I didn’t mean to. Thought we could go shopping for your coat.”

 

Maybe tomorrow?” Janis asks, shutting the lid of her laptop as she manoeuvers around to face him whilst trying not to disturb Jay too much. “If you pick me up from school then we can go straight there.”

 

“I’m working,” He says. Janis nods. “But it’ll be my last late night in a while. I saw my boss today about changing the times of my shifts. I’m going to start earlier and finish earlier.”

 

“Okay,” she says. She wants to believe what he’s saying but she can’t. It’ll be fine for a week maybe, then there will be an emergency at work and he’ll have to stay late. “Well, um,” she looks up at the clock. “I’d better get going. Don’t want to be late to Damian’s.”

 

She’ll be way too early, but she wants to get out.

 

He doesn’t say anything as he steps back to let Janis leave her room and she suspects that he was expecting a better reaction than the one he’d got. He hovers as she pulls her shoes on and when she runs upstairs to grab her keys. She’s just pulling open the front door when he finally speaks up.

 

“I’m trying Janis, can’t you see that?” He says and his voice wavers.

 

She freezes with the door half open.

 

“I know,” she chokes out. She doesn’t turn to look at him. “But you’ve got a lot to make up for, dad. It’ll take a while.”

 

Then she steps out and closes the door behind her, speed walking down the front path. So maybe they won’t be going shopping for a new coat tomorrow. Janis will probably end up taking Cady and Damian or something. It briefly crosses her mind to see if Karen wants to go, but she pushes it away almost as soon as it enters her mind.

 

She and Karen aren’t friends. They’re just two kids going through similar rough times, that’s all.

 

Janis ends up at Damian’s half an hour early. She lets herself in with the key he’d given her a while ago and heads straight down to the basement where she curls up on the sofa and texts him that she’s already there. They text back and forth until Janis hears the front door open and races up the stairs. Damian has barely stepped in the door when Janis throws her arms around his neck and engulfs him in a hug.

 

He hugs her back and she buries her face in his shoulder, blinking back the tears that well up at the thought of finally being able to let out the feelings that have built up over the past couple of days.

 

Ms. Hubbard hugs Janis too, squeezing her shoulder when they pull apart. She takes their requests for pizzas and shoos them down to the basement until it arrives. After a few games of Mario Kart the door goes and over dinner Damian is full of stories about his grandma and younger cousins and Janis listens intently. Ms. Hubbard joins in at some points, and there’s a moment after the two of them reenacting one of their stories that Janis is laughing so hard that she’s crying.

 

There’s always laughter in Damian’s house, and she loves it.

 

They’re banished back down to the basement with the rest of the pizza once they’re mostly done eating, and they put on a crappy romcom that Ms. Hubbard suggested. Neither of them are really interested, and Damian asks the question.

 

“How are things with your dad?”

 

Janis sighs, running a hand over her face and Damian reaches out. “He’s… I don’t know. He cooked dinner last night, came home early from work today. I mean he even fucking changed the times his shifts. He’s trying but I just—he wants me to forgive him instantly and that’s not going to happen. So he’s frustrated and I’m frustrated,” she pauses, letting her head fall back against the armrest. “I just closed the door on him earlier. Don’t wanna go back.”

 

“You can stay here for tonight. You’ve got all the shit you need here except your school books but we can pick those up tomorrow morning if we leave a couple minutes early,” He says and Janis nods.

 

“You have to face him at some point, though,” Damian says. “You need to let him know that it’s going to take time and that you’re willing to try and forgive him. It’s good that he’s finally trying but that doesn’t make up for the last six months.”

 

“I told him that, but I left before he could say anything,” she shrugs. “Also… what would you think of me messaging Karen about it?”

 

“What?”

 

“Karen. Her mom left when we were eleven and I don’t know, I—Friday night was rough, and she was the only person I could think of who’d _get it_ ,” Janis focuses on her fingernail, scratching at her already chipping nail varnish. “And that’s nothing against you but… I just—I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea so I messaged her and then she gave me her number and today I helped her draft a text to her mom who decided to get in contact and fuck man, that felt bad and now I don’t know what to do because I think Karen wants to be friends.”

 

“That’s a lot to unpack,” Damian breathes once Janis stops rambling. “And it’s okay, I’m not mad about you wanting to talk to her, that totally makes sense. But what do you mean she wants to be friends?”

 

“I mean that she keeps saying that she’s okay with being friends if I’m okay with it,” Janis shrugs. “And like she’s nice and all and she was never rude to me like the others were but I don’t think I can be friends with someone who’s friends with Regina, you know?”

 

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Damian says. “Well it’s up to you, hon, but you don’t have to be friends with anyone you don’t want to be friends with.”

 

Janis shifts so that she’s leaning against Damian and he plays with a lock of her hair, twisting it around his finger as they both sit in silence. When Janis starts to cry he doesn’t say anything, just pulls her closer and hugs her. That makes her cry harder.

 

He hands her a tissue once she’s done and waves off all of her apologies. He leaves to grab some soda and microwave a few slices of pizza and they settle back down again with another cheesy romcom on. They make fun of the characters and Janis falls asleep on Damian’s shoulder about halfway through.

 

She’s woken up at the end of the film by Ms. Hubbard telling them to head upstairs and get ready for bed. Janis brushes her teeth and changes into the pair of pyjamas that she keeps here for nights like these when she doesn’t want to go back home. It’s sad, but it’s saved her ass a lot of times.

 

Janis is hesitant to call her dad, but she does it whilst Damian is in the shower. “I’m staying at Damian’s tonight,”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Sorry about earlier.”

 

“That’s fine.”

 

And it’s not fine, Janis can tell by the curt answers but she’s not arguing with him over the phone. “Good night.”

 

“Night, Jan. Love you.”

 

Yeah. Love you too,” she hangs up.

 

She crawls under Damian’s covers, pulling them up to her chin. He enters a couple of minutes later and climbs in next to her. Janis smiles a little remembering the times they used to squeeze onto his tiny single bed before his mom let him upgrade to a double.

 

Damian falls asleep after a couple of minutes, snoring lightly. Janis doesn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> →Updates every three days!
> 
> thank you for reading! ♥
> 
> ⋆[pinterest.](https://pin.it/axdt62ze5gutav)  
>  ⋆[twitter.](https://twitter.com/crowning_gloryy)


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> →I realised that I had this incorrectly marked as a four-chapter fic when it is indeed five, sorry about that!

**Three**

* * *

 

 

The next morning things are fine when Janis goes to collect her school books. Her dad seems happy, gives her and Damian a hug before they leave, and doesn’t bring up last night which Janis is grateful for. He waves both of them off with a cheery goodbye and once they’re a far enough distance away from the house, Damian turns to her.

 

“That was weird,” he says, raising his eyebrows.

 

Janis shrugs, kicking a stone into the road. “I told you he’s trying.”

 

“Yeah but he wasn’t even like that before,” Damian says. “That’s why it’s weird.”

 

“He’s going through a crisis, leave the man be,” Janis jokes, digging her elbow into Damian’s ribs.

 

Once he’s done rolling on the pavement and pretending that Janis broke his rib (she watches the whole thing red-faced) he gets up, dusts himself down and starts walking again, taking Janis’s hand in his. “I hope the next thing he does is shave all of his hair off,” he says. “Or, like, buys a really expensive car that he takes the three of us out in.”

 

“Do you mean taking us out for a ride or running us over?”

 

“Running us over, of course,” Damian grins, nudging Janis. “You really think I want to ride around in an expensive car? Do you even know me, Sarkisian?”

 

“I know you better than you know yourself, Hubbard,” She scoffs as they sit down on the stairs in front of the school, waiting for Cady.

 

“You’re not wrong,” he shrugs, leaning his head on her shoulder. “I mean, I know you better than I know myself, so I guess we’re even.”

 

“Totally.”

 

* * *

 

Cady appears just as the bell rings, blaming traffic as they make their way through the crowded halls and to their class. Janis and Damian don’t really mind, and they only miss a few minutes of class anyway so it’s not too big of a deal. The only thing that is is that their usual desks have been taken by others wanting to sit together, so they begrudgingly split up and vow to be earlier next time. Whether it means leaving with or without Cady.

 

Janis spends the entire period glaring daggers into the back of Gretchen Wiener’s head.

 

The school day goes slowly. Janis catches Karen’s eye in the hallway, the lunchroom and as she’s heading to her locker at the end of the day. She’s just shoving her books in her locker when her phone buzzes with a text from Karen to meet her in the same bathrooms as before. Janis tells Damian and Cady that she needs to go and speak to her homeroom tutor and with some convincing manages to convince them to just go home and not wait for her. Cady agrees before Damian does, but eventually he realises that he’s not going to get anywhere before making Janis promise that she’ll text him when she gets home.

 

Once the two of them are gone and the hallways are mostly empty, Janis heads over, and she’s barely opened the door when Karen is thrusting her phone into her face. Holding back a scream of surprise, Janis takes the phone and reads the text message that is on the screen.

 

Karen’s mom is coming back for a weekend and wants to meet up with her daughter. There’s an ache in Janis’s stomach as she reads it, and she has to blink back tears as Karen looks at her expectantly.

 

“You’ll have to talk to your dad about this, Karen,” she shrugs. “I can’t help you here. If you want to go then I get it, but, on the other hand, is it worth it when she’s only going to leave again?”

 

“That’s a good point,” Karen says softly. She fiddles with the strap of her purse. “Um, I’ll ask dad about it I guess.”

 

“He might not let you go,” Janis says. Her dad probably wouldn’t, however much she would want to. “And I don’t—I’m not sure that it’s a very good idea, either.”

 

“Yeah,” Karen nods. “I should go; my dad is waiting outside. Do you want to come back with me? You haven’t been to my house in forever, and we redid my bedroom so it’s even prettier than it was—”

 

“No thanks, Karen,” Janis fakes a smile, squeezing the other girls’ shoulder. “I’ve gotta get home.”

 

And it’s a lie—she could go to Karen’s if she wanted to. But the problem is that she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t think that she can face seeing Karen’s room again, even if it has changed, because there are so many memories in there that she wants to forget. Of makeup and dresses and taunts and heated arguments.

 

She leaves the bathroom and half expects Karen to follow her but she doesn’t. Janis doesn’t know if she’s upset or not, but she leaves quickly and ignores Mr. Smith waving at her from his car.

 

It’s raining when as she walks home and she’s regretting not calling her dad to come and pick her up or at least not asking Mr. Smith for a ride (it’s cheeky, she knows, but he would probably be happy to drop her off). When she gets in she kicks off her shoes, shrugs off her coat and leaves her backpack propped up against the coat stand.

 

There’s voices coming from the living room, and she’s aware that one of them is her dad’s and that she can’t place the other one. It’s female, and she’s hoping to God that it’s just someone on the TV. But she knows deep down that it’s not. That there’s a woman in their house and she’s about to be told something that she doesn’t want to hear.

 

And Janis knows that this was going to happen at some point, that her dad was going to move on and find someone else which, yeah, he deserved to do, but she wasn’t expecting it to happen this early. Not only six months in when they’re still adjusting to life and are trying to make sense of everything that’s been happening. And she definitely didn’t expect to be told just as her dad was trying to get back their relationship. Not knowing is better than knowing in situations like this, or at least to Janis that would be the better alternative. She really doesn’t want to know and she doesn’t want to see this woman.

 

She doesn’t want to replace her mom.

 

“Jan?” Her dad’s voice calls as she’s trying to sneak up the stairs and avoid everything. “We know you’re out there. We heard you come in.”

 

Janis swallows down the dread, curls her hands into fists and walks into the living room, her eyes narrowing at the woman. She looks like Janis’s mom and there’s a sour taste in Janis’s mouth as she glances up at the pictures on the wall and then back down to the woman. Her dad, noticing this, clears his throat and shifts awkwardly in his seat, trying to catch Janis’s attention.

 

“How was school, kid?” He asks.

 

“I wish I was still there,” Janis replies bitterly, directing her scathing gaze towards him now. The woman next to him looks back and forth between the two. “It’s been six months.”

 

“I know,” he sighs. “I know, Jan, but we wanted to finally tell you. I was hoping that in addition to forgiving me, you’d start to bond with Sarah,” he gestures to the woman who waves. Janis’s hands stay curled at her side. “I thought that it would be nice of us to start doing things as a family.”

 

Janis’s eyes widen at those words, and she takes a step back. A family? This Sarah isn’t part of the family, and she never will be. Janis wants to tell him that, shout it at the both of them, but she can’t. They have a family already. Her, and her mom and her dad and her mom leaving doesn’t mean that she’s not part of the family. She’s still blood. Sarah isn’t. Sarah never will be.

 

Janis’s blood is boiling, and the two of them are staring at her expectantly. Janis can’t even look at the woman any more and so she focuses entirely on her dad. Her dad who had just implied that Sarah was part of their family.

 

He stands up, breaking the stretching silence and when he moves towards Janis she turns and bolts. She doesn’t bother to grab her coat, backpack, or shoes, but she pulls the front door open and sprints down the porch steps. Her socks quickly get wet as she races down the street, ignoring the calls from behind her. She reaches Damian’s house, soaking wet and crying and before she’s even made her way up the porch steps, Ms. Hubbard is pulling the door open.

 

“Your dad called to say you might be visiting,” she says softly, wrapping an arm around Janis’s shoulders and ushering her inside. Damian comes racing down the stairs, pulling Janis into a hug.

 

“Dad has a girlfriend,” Janis murmurs as she buries her face in his shoulder. Damian hugs her tighter. “He wants us to do things as a _family._ ”

 

“Oh honey,” Ms. Hubbard is frowning when Janis and Damian eventually pulls apart, and she gives Janis a quick hug before wrapping a towel around her shoulders. She guides her over to the fireplace and quickly sets about getting the fire going. “I’m sorry.”

 

Damian sits cross-legged next to Janis, draping a blanket on top of the towel. “That’s shit,” he whispers so that his mom can’t hear him. “Does she look like a witch?”

 

“She looks like mom,” Janis shrugs, staring at the floor. “Dad has a type I guess,” and it’s a feeble not-really-a-joke but Damian seems to find it hilarious.

 

“Should have chucked water over her,” he giggles. “See if she would melt.”

 

“Wanna go back to mine?” Janis smiles. “Dad won’t tell you off, and I’d rather not be grounded for the rest of my life.”

 

And Janis is glad for Damian lightening the situation. She chucks a wet sock at him when Ms. Hubbard brings a change of clothes down for Janis, and they curl up together on the sofa and watch a film, taking Janis's mind off of it for a little while.

 

* * *

 

 

Cady comes over for dinner, and it’s when they’re in the basement with several Chinese dishes spread amongst them, that they start talking about it again.

 

“I just wish he hadn’t told me yet,” Janis says around a mouthful of chicken chow mein. “And he can fuck off with the whole family shit—I’m not doing that. They can date all they want to, I just don’t want to know and I never want to see her again.”

 

“That’s fair,” Damian nods. “But if this turns out serious then you have to prepare yourself for stuff that’s going to happen later on down the line,” he says. “And it sucks but…”

 

“I know,” Janis sighs. “But I—I think if it comes to that I’ll have had enough time to prepare. It’s been barely six months, that’s what I hate the most I think. He hasn’t even—Karen’s mom is getting back in contact after six _years._ Dad hasn’t even given mom a chance.”

 

“Janis—” Cady starts but Janis cuts her off.

 

“And yeah, I know what you’re going to say, but even if she doesn’t come back, even if we never see her again. Six months is still a hella short time to get over someone you’ve been married to for over sixteen years,” Janis is shaking, and she drops her fork. “It just—I hate him. I hate him for thinking that this is… that I would just be okay with this. It’s selfish.”

 

“He’s just trying to move on, Janis,” Cady says. Damian nods. “No, maybe this isn’t the right way to go about it, I’m not saying that this whole thing isn’t shitty and hasn’t put you in a really awkward position, but I bet that he’s been saying the same things to himself that you’re saying to us right now. He’s probably had this conversation with himself a hundred times.”

 

Janis has been far too angry to see it from her dad’s perspective when she was there, but the more that she thinks about it and the more the three of them talk, the more it does kind of make sense. She can see his reasoning, but she’s not sold on the Sarah idea and she doubts that she will be for a long while. And maybe she is being a bit too harsh on him, but what does he expect? She’s honestly surprised that he couldn’t have seen this kind of reaction. Did he just expect her to be happy about it? To welcome his new girlfriend with open arms? As if.

 

“You need to talk him that you’re not comfortable with having her around yet,” Damian says. “That you still need time.”

 

“I will when I’m back home,” Janis nods. “Um, can I stay here tonight?” She turns to Damian. “I can’t go back home tonight. I can’t. She’s still probably there and—”

 

“Of course you can,” he nods. “We’ll just do what we did yesterday. Grab your stuff in the morning. D’you wanna stay Cady? Make a night out of it.”

 

Cady has a mouthful of noodles but she nods. So once they’ve finished and cleared up their dinner Janis borrows Damian’s phone to call her dad (she’s on autopilot and almost keys in Karen’s full number before she realises her mistake and quickly deletes it. As much as she wants to talk to Karen about this, she has a stepmom after all, she can’t right now. But maybe they can meet in the bathroom again tomorrow at lunch).

 

The conversation with her dad is short much like last night. She hangs up without saying goodbye when she hears Sarah’s voice in the background. Maybe Janis is being too mean to the woman who she barely knows, but even thinking about her leaves a sour taste in Janis’s mouth. She hands Damian’s phone back with a huff and flops onto one of the beanbags beside him.

 

Cady’s mom stops quickly to bring Cady her pyjamas, toiletries, and a change of clothes and once she’s gone the three of them manage to convince Ms. Hubbard to let them sleep down in the basement.

 

Damian and Cady pass out at about two in the morning. The familiar ache is back in Janis’s chest, and she eyes Damian’s phone across the room. She gets up slowly, making her way across the room silently. She takes his phone off charge and tiptoes up the basement steps as she keys in Karen’s number. She isn’t expecting the girl to answer, but she’s also not surprised when she does.

 

“Hey,” she whispers, sinking down onto Damian’s couch.

 

“Hey,” Karen whispers back. “Who’s phone are you calling from?”

 

“Damian’s. He doesn’t know. So don’t, like, text this number or anything afterwards.”

 

“I won’t,” Karen says. “What’s the matter. And why aren’t you calling from your own phone?”

 

My phone is at home in my coat pocket,” Janis admits. “And, um, I don’t have it ‘cause I kinda ran away earlier without it. Karen. My dad has a girlfriend.”

 

“Oh,” Karen gasps. “Oh no. Janis I’m so sorry—”

 

“It sucks,” Janis says. “And I don’t—I don’t know how I’m supposed to be dealing with it. He wants her to be part of the family or some shit and I’m not ready for that.”

 

“Tell her to fuck off,” Karen whispers. Janis has to hold back a laugh. “That’s what I did when my dad had his first girlfriend.”

 

“Did it work?”

 

“Well he didn’t bring her to the house for a while so yeah,” Karen giggles. “And I didn’t get into too much trouble either.”

 

“Maybe I’ll do that then,” Janis smiles.

 

“Or you can call her a witch and throw water at her,” Karen says and it’s harder for Janis to hold back her laughter this time. “That made his second girlfriend break up with him.”

 

“Damian and I were talking about doing that earlier,” she says, her eyes watering as she tries hard not to laugh. “Do you think both of them at the same time would do the trick? Telling her to fuck off before I throw the water at her? Or is it just overkill.”

 

“I think it’s perfect,” Karen laughs, and there’s a flutter in Janis’s chest. “Uh. I should go. Do you want to come over tomorrow after school?”

 

And it beats going back home so Janis agrees. Karen hangs up, and Janis erases the call from Damian’s history and replaces his phone. She knows that avoiding her dad isn’t going to make the situation go away, but she needs more time and there will be no way that she’ll sleep round Karen’s house. It gives Sarah enough time to go home and enough time for Janis to think about what she wants to tell her dad.

 

With the promise of seeing Karen tomorrow, Janis finds it a lot easier to fall asleep and joins Damian and Cady almost as soon as she’s settled in her sleeping bag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> →Updates every three days!
> 
> thank you for reading! ♥
> 
> ⋆[pinterest.](https://pin.it/axdt62ze5gutav)  
>  ⋆[twitter.](https://twitter.com/crowning_gloryy)


	4. Four

**Four**

* * *

 

 

Karen’s room is prettier than Janis remembers it being. Just like Karen had said it would be. She’d always hated the hot pink walls, really the hot pink _ everything _ , but the baby pink on the walls now is a lot more bearable, and she’s pleasantly surprised that most of the pink furniture has been replaced with white.

 

“I haven’t shown Regina yet,” Karen admits. “I’m not sure if she’d like it or not.” 

 

“Screw her,” Janis shrugs, flopping down onto the bed. “Who cares what she thinks? Other than Gretchen, of course.” 

 

“I think even Gretchen is getting fed up with her,” Karen says, sitting down on her window seat. “She keeps making excuses every time Regina wants to hang out and I don’t blame her,” she frowns slightly, staring down at her rug. “Regina’s getting meaner and meaner, but we’re just too scared to say anything. Both of us. I mean, where will we sit at lunch—” 

 

“You can sit with us,” Janis says, maybe too eagerly. Karen blinks. “I mean Gretchen will take a while to get used to I guess, but you’re both free to join me, Damian and Cady.” 

 

Karen looks uneasy, wrinkling her nose. “Regina will—” 

 

"Let her do whatever she wants,” Janis says, waving off Karen’s concerns. “She doesn’t have as much power as she thinks she does. Not anymore. Only over you and Gretchen, and once that ends then it’s over.” 

 

“The other kids are still scared of her—” 

 

“Only because they see how she treats you two,” Janis shrugs. She props herself up on an elbow. “As soon as you make it clear that you’re not going to put up with her shit then everyone else will follow suit.” 

 

“You think so?” 

 

<“I do. Honestly.” 

 

And Karen still looks uneasy, but there’s a hint of determination in her eye. “Okay. Maybe I will join you.” 

 

“Cool. I’m fine with that,” Janis says, and Karen smiles. She gets up, laying down next to Janis. 

 

Without her heels on she’s half a head shorter than Janis and it’s adorable, Janis thinks, that she has to shuffle up so that they’re laying side to side properly. Then Karen’s leaning against her and Janis almost melts into a puddle when Karen grabs her hand and interlinks their fingers. 

 

“So… have you talked to your dad about his girlfriend yet?” She asks. 

 

“No,” Janis admits. She hadn’t even stopped by the house this morning, Damian giving her a spare backpack, a handful of stationary and a wedge of paper before they left his house. “But I guess that I’ll have to when I get home.” 

 

If she could get away with it Janis would stay another night at Damian’s. But she needs her things, and she misses Jay Catsby, and she knows that her dad will be out of his mind with worry (she’d texted him from Damian’s phone earlier to tell him she wouldn’t be home after school, but she hadn’t told him where she would be. A bitchy move, she knows, but so is inviting your new girlfriend over without telling your daughter). 

 

Karen shift next to her so that she can lean her head on Janis’s shoulder. “Tell him you don’t like it,” she says. “Don’t bother lying to him.” 

 

“I won’t,” Janis has to resist the urge to run her hands through Karen’s hair. “I’ll tell him what I think, don’t worry. I’m pissed about it but I can’t exactly stop them from dating.” 

 

“Your mom hasn’t even been gone for that long, has she?” Karen asks softly. Janis stiffens. “I, um, I didn't mean that rudely but—” 

 

“I know what you mean,” Janis says, her voice thick with tears. “No. She hasn’t. Uh. Six months, that’s it. I think—I think that’s what’s pissed me off the most about it all; I don’t care he has a new girlfriend, not really, but it’s just all so soon and it makes me wonder… I mean, I don’t think my dad would ever do that, I really don’t, but it just— less than six months to get over someone you’ve been married to for over sixteen years? Doesn’t make sense.” 

 

“He probably doesn’t want to be alone,” Karen looks up at her. “It’s not easy being single when you’ve been together for so long.” 

 

That makes sense, Janis guesses and she hopes to God that this Sarah is just a stupid rebound and that the thing will be over in a couple of months. It’s rude of her to even think that, but she can’t help it. She doesn’t know the woman, doesn’t want to get to know her, and she hates how much she reminds her of her mom. The same kind eyes, the same warm smile… 

 

Janis feels sick. 

 

She rolls onto her stomach, burying her face in Karen’s pillow. There’s a whine of protest from her left as Karen’s head is jostled, and then a hand on her back and then Janis is crying again and she’s trying her best to stop because she’s at Karen’s house but she can’t. Karen is right _ there  _ and Janis is crying into her pillow. There’s a mixture of emotions bubbling up inside of her; anger, shame, sadness, guilt… Janis wants the ground to swallow her whole. 

 

And Karen is rubbing her back, comforting her the entire time that Janis cries. When she finishes and eventually rolls back onto her side, Karen offers her some tissues and doesn’t say anything as Janis wipes at her cheeks and blows her nose. 

 

It’s weird how Janis wouldn’t have even dreamed of this ever happening a week ago. 

 

They sit in silence for a long time after that, and Janis feels so ashamed. But Karen doesn’t seem angry, she looks over at Janis every couple of seconds, eyes full of concern, returning the watery smile that Janis will occasionally give her when she catches her looking. 

 

And when Janis sits up and leans towards her, Karen does the same leaning forwards and suddenly they’re kissing and Karen’s hand is in Janis’s hair and all Janis can taste is strawberry flavoured lip gloss. 

 

She’s slightly breathless when they pull apart but there’s not much of a respite because Karen is kissing her again and again and Janis’s mind is blissfully blank as she wraps her arms around Karen’s waist and pulls her closer. 

 

“I’ve been waiting to do that for so long,” Karen whispers when they pull apart again, flopping back against Karen’s pillows. 

 

“Me too,” Janis admits, staring at the ceiling. Her mind is racing because holy fuck she’s just kissed Karen Smith and holy fuck she’s in _ love _ with Karen Smith. Has been for a while. 

 

Before her mom left, even. 

 

There’s a reason her mind went instantly to Karen that night, and now Janis knows why. Of course there is also their shared past, Janis knows that she would never have been able to work up the courage to message Karen without that, but Janis can’t deny her feelings any longer. 

 

But then again, maybe she doesn’t have to. 

 

“I’ve never kissed a girl before,” Karen breathes, looking over at Janis with a goofy smile on her face. “But that was pretty good.” 

 

“Yeah me neither,” Janis blushes. “I’ve never kissed anyone before now, but I see what I’ve been missing out on all this time.” 

 

Janis kisses her again and hopes that she’ll never ever get tired of it. She hopes that it’ll feel like this forever, all magical and as if they’re at the top of the world, never to be knocked down, and when they’re interrupted by a knock on the door Janis still feels giddy even after they’ve pulled away and Mr. Smith steps into the room. 

 

“Your dad called,” he says, leaning against the doorframe. The giddiness quickly disappears. “He’s on his way to come and get you.” 

 

She grimaces and nods, letting out a whine when the door clicks shut again and they’re left alone. Karen pouts and Janis wants to kiss her again, but she restrains herself. Instead she gazes into Karen’s eyes and wonders how the fuck she’s managed to get so lucky. A Plastic, an absolutely beautiful girl, someone who was her sworn enemy only a couple of weeks ago, has just kissed her and honestly, she doesn’t know what to do with that information. 

 

When they hears tyres on the gravel outside they roll off of the bed and begrudgingly head downstairs. Janis grabs the pair of shoes that Damian had leant her—laced as tightly as they can be, although that doesn’t stop them from falling off, and slings the borrowed backpack onto her shoulder. 

 

They embrace in the moment before there’s a knock at the door, and then Janis is being waved off and she’s filled with dread as she and her dad are completely silent heading towards the car. 

 

“You scared me,” he says when they climb in. Janis stares straight down at her shoes. “Why did you do that, Janis?” 

 

“Why did you bring your girlfriend over?” is the sharp response. Janis crosses her arms over her chest once she’s buckled in and narrows her eyes. “I mean six months, really? You think that that was enough time?” 

 

“We’ve only been dating for three months, I thought that was enough time,” he sighs, starting the engine when he notices Mr. Smith peeking out of the window at them. “I don’t know. Sarah wanted to meet you and I couldn’t say no, not when I’ve just started to make so much fuss about being able to spend time with you. I was scared she’d think I was purposely trying to keep her away, like she didn’t belong or something.” 

 

“Well she doesn’t,” Janis huffs and the words are mean, but she doesn’t regret them. 

 

Janis’s dad doesn’t say anything to that, pulling out of the Smiths’s estate. He switches on the radio, keeps it on low so that they can hear each other if they do speak, but he doesn’t need to. They don’t talk the entire ride home. Janis couldn’t care less if he blasted the music at the highest volume; she still wouldn’t even speak to him to ask him to turn it down. 

 

They’ve parked and Janis is halfway out of the car when he speaks again. 

 

“You didn’t even take shoes with you, Jan,” he says. “I’m so glad you have Damian.” 

 

“Yeah, me too. He won’t randomly surprise me with a girlfriend,” And then she slams the car door shut and storms to the front door. Then, after stopping to retrieve her phone from her coat pocket, to her room.   
  


 

* * *

 

 

She stays up in her room until she’s called down for dinner. Jay follows her down, rubbing at her ankles, although she has to shut the door to the kitchen to keep him out so that he doesn’t end up eating their food. She doesn’t even notice Sarah seated at the table at first, and doesn’t even catch on when her dad asks for three plates—she just assumes he needs an extra one for some of the food or something—but when she turns around and catches sight of the woman, the plates slip from her hands and smash on the floor. 

 

Firstly, it’s creepy how alike she looks to Janis’s mom, secondly, she wasn’t expecting her to be there—why didn’t her dad mention this in the car?—and thirdly, she’s sitting in Janis’s mom’s seat which might be a stupid thing to get upset about considering it’s been empty for a while now, but Janis hates it. 

 

Both of the adults cry out when the plates smash and Janis, for the second time that day wants the ground to swallow her whole. She stays still, waits until her dad cleans up the glass and retrieves her slippers just in case there are any small shards that he’d missed, before moving to the table. Then she serves herself and starts to leave. 

 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Her dad asks, stopping her in her tracks. 

 

“I want to eat in my room,” she shrugs. “I don’t—you didn’t tell me _ she  _ was here.”

 

“ _ She _ has a name that you know,” he says, raising his eyebrows. “Sit down at the table please, Jan.”

 

“No. Not if she’s going to be sitting in mom’s seat.” 

 

“Do you want to sit there, then?” 

 

“No. I have my seat.” 

 

“Do you want me to sit there?” She can see her dad getting slightly frustrated now, but she’s stubborn and she doesn’t want Sarah sitting there. It reminds her of too much. 

 

“No,” Janis sighs. “It’s mom’s chair, not dad’s new girlfriend’s. Can’t I just eat upstairs? You two can do whatever you want down here without me.” 

 

“But we want to talk to you, Janis,” Sarah says, and even her voice makes Janis’s blood boil and it’s stupid, because this woman hasn’t done anything to her. She could be a really cool person for all Janis knows. “About what we can do to make this easier for you.” 

 

“Well. First off can you switch seats with my dad please?” Janis asks after a minute, her hand tightening on the rim of her plate. It’s not the best arrangement, and Janis still hates that the chair is being used and that she has to admit defeat on the issue, but it’s better than having _ her _ sit there. 

 

She sits back down when they do, and spears some pasta on her fork. There’s tension in the air, and Janis is sure that Sarah’s picked up on her dislike of her—if she hadn’t then Janis would be pretty surprised and slightly worried—and it only grows when Janis notices that Sarah is wearing her mom’s slippers. The ones that Janis got her for Mother’s Day last year with little dinosaurs printed on them. 

 

Janis clenches her jaw, gripping her fork so hard that it hurts her hand. She’s not going to say anything about it now; she’s already kicked up a fuss about the chair situation, but her dad will definitely hear about it later. And it’s not necessarily the wearing of the slippers that’s the problem but just that, out of however many pairs there is tucked in the closet, her dad had allowed her to wear those ones. 

 

“So, Jan, we wanted to come up with some rules for when Sarah’s coming ov—” 

 

“You have to tell me she’s coming over before she arrives, I don’t really want to see you kissing or any of that shit, no expecting me to treat her like mom—I mean I’ll be respectful, but I’m not calling her mom or pretending she’s my mom or anything—and just to know that it’s going to take me a while to get used to this. I’m—I’m not ready for this. At all. But I can’t stop it from happening because you're the adults and I can’t stop you from doing anything really,” and Janis hates this. She hates how Sarah’s looking at her with pity. “I’m sorry, but—” 

 

“You don’t have to apologise for being uncomfortable with this, Jan,” her dad says, reaching across the table to take her hand. “It’s a lot to take in, I know that, and it’ll be a big adjustment. I just want you to try, okay? I know you’ve already written Sarah off as someone you don’t like,” and Janis can’t even deny that. He glances towards Sarah, and she smiles back, taking his free hand. “But she’s really great once you get to know her.” 

 

And for a minute Janis thinks they’re about to kiss, and she gets ready to look away, but they don’t. Sarah holds her hand up as Janis’s dad gets close. 

 

“Janis just said she doesn’t want to see us kissing or any of that shit,” she says and Janis raises her eyebrows, caught slightly off guard. 

 

“Of course,” her dad smiles sheepishly, leaning over to ruffle Janis’s hair. “Sorry, kid.” 

 

Janis just shrugs and goes back to her pasta salad. Okay so maybe Sarah wasn’t too bad after all; she’d taken Janis’s demands into consideration so that was something, even when her dad had forgotten already. Still, she doesn’t engage in the small talk for the rest of dinner and heads back upstairs as soon as she’s done. 

 

Jay greets her when she opens the kitchen door, and she carries him back to her room. Her phone is vibrating on her desk when she enters, and she practically lunges across the room to answer it when she spots Karen’s contact picture. 

 

“Hi!” Karen chirps as soon as Janis answers. “I’ve been trying to call you for the past thirty minutes.” 

 

“I’ve been eating dinner,” Janis admits, sitting down in her desk chair. “Sarah might not be that bad. I haven’t decided yet. She was wearing the slippers I bought for my mom last Mother’s Day, but she also did listen to me when I asked them not to do something things, so…” 

 

“I really hope she’s nice,” Karen says. “I really do.” 

 

“Thanks,” Janis smiles, rocking back on her chair. “So what were you calling for?” 

 

“I missed you,” Karen says and Janis grins. “Also I messaged Gretchen telling her we’re sitting with you at lunch tomorrow except that I messaged the group chat without realising. Um. Regina said some things and now Regina’s blocked and I don’t have a ride to school tomorrow but I’m free from living under her rules, and it feels good. Thanks for giving me the courage.” 

 

“You’re welcome,” Janis says. She feels proud that Karen had stood up for herself, even if she had been trying to avoid that by messaging Gretchen alone. 

 

“And also I just… we didn’t talk about it when you were here, but… what are we?” 

 

“What do you mean?” 

 

“Like, are we girlfriends?” Just the word makes Janis’s heart flutter, and she can feel herself blushing. 

 

“I mean, yeah. If you want to be then who am I to say no?” 

 

“I do,” Karen breathes. “I really do want to be your girlfriend.” 

 

“Then it’s settled,” Janis feels giddy again and she wants to kiss Karen once more, wishes that she was back in Karen’s room laying next to her on the bed. “We’re girlfriends. That’s tits.” 

 

“I don’t know what that means,” Karen giggles. “But yeah. It’s tits. Everything is tits.” 

 

They talk for a little while longer until Mr. Smith makes Karen go to bed. Janis stays seated in her desk chair, Jay on her lap, grinning. She feels as if she’s on cloud nine right now. 

 

She has a girlfriend. 

 

Janis Sarkisian has a girlfriend. 

 

She’s talked things through with her dad and Sarah, she’s had her first kiss and, by God, she has a _ girlfriend!  _

 

For the first time in a while, Janis has had a good day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> →Updates every three days!
> 
> thank you for reading! ♥
> 
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	5. Five

**Five**

* * *

 

  

Janis finally gets the winter coat that she needs. Her dad takes her out on Saturday morning and they grab lunch at the mall’s food court before they do a little bit of shopping. They talk things out. _Really_ talk things out. Janis doesn’t hold back about her opinions of Sarah, she doesn’t try and sugarcoat it, and she lets him know just how rough the past couple of months have actually been.

 

And he actually listens. They talk about the things that Janis had said at dinner with Sarah the other night. They talk about Sarah a lot actually, and Janis’s dad admits that he didn’t expect Janis’s reaction but now that they’ve talked about it he can see why. And he swears blind that he didn’t notice how similar Sarah looks to Janis’s mom, but she doesn’t quite believe that.

 

They leave the food court full of food and exhausted from their conversation, but they buy Janis’s coat finally and a few things for Damian’s upcoming birthday. It’s a nice trip even if they do talk about some heavy stuff, and it’s no longer super awkward between them. When they get home she’s asked if Sarah can come over and she agrees as long as Karen can come over too.

 

Karen arrives before Sarah and the two of them quickly disappear to Janis’s room, locking her door. It’s not as if they’re planning to do anything, but they rarely get time alone without Gretchen, Cady and Damian being there that they don’t want to be interrupted when they finally get it.

 

When they enter Janis’s room, Karen goes straight to Janis’s desk chair, crouching beside it and petting Jay Catsby. Janis is pretty sure that he’s the only reason she actually comes to her house anymore but she’s not too bothered because at least she’s here and honestly, who can blame her for loving Janis's cat more than she loves Janis?

 

“So what do you think about Lizzie Therman joining us today?” She asks as Janis sits down beside her, legs pulled to her chest. “Did you see Regina’s face? I thought she was about to start screaming in the middle of the cafeteria.”

 

Janis snorts. “I wish she had. That would have been super entertaining. How long do you think it’ll be until she starts eating lunch in the auditorium?”

 

Gretchen and Karen joining Janis’s table had been more successful than they thought. Soon others started joining; Sonja Acquino was first, then Taylor Wedell, Grace Akinola and today Lizzie Therman. It was weird at first, but the conversations around the table became more lively as the table became more crowded and Janis actually finds herself looking forward to lunch now. The tables at North Shore only have ten seats, but Janis is looking forward to seeing who the final person is to join them. With every one, Regina’s face gets even redder, and Janis thinks that as soon as the tenth place is taken, the girl is going to explode.

 

It’s weird how different having even a simple movie night is now. There’s too many of them to crowd in her room, and so they usually end up taking the living room over (Damian’s basement could hold them all, but that was reserved for the movie nights that Janis, Damian and Cady have to themselves every Tuesday night). Her dad has to buy paper plates and plastic cutlery for them to use when they order food, because in a house of two there isn’t enough extra plates or cutlery for an extra eight people. And the whole thing is a pretty big deal. But Janis takes advantage of it, has as many as her dad will allow her to, because she’d missed out on it all growing up because of Regina.

 

And it’s odd how the tables have turned, but Janis doesn’t really feel bad about it. Regina looks lonely eating by herself, sure, and maybe their table is a little bit too obnoxious with their loud laughter and conversations, but Janis had eaten alone for almost a year after returning to school from taking a year out and had to watch the Plastics socialising every day (and if she wasn’t looking, Regina would do something to catch her attention to them), so she can’t find it in herself to really care.

 

It’s payback and Regina deserves it.

 

* * *

 

 

For their first real date Janis and Karen go to a local spa. It’s not really Janis’s thing, but Karen gets a voucher for her birthday and so they decide to go. She’s pleasantly surprised by how much she enjoys it.

 

Their second date is at Damian’s choir showcase. Their third date is at an ice-cream parlour. Their fourth date is a trip to the cinema where they make things official once the film has ended and everyone else has filtered out. They stay in the empty screen until they’re ushered out by the cleaning staff.

 

Their fifth date is a double date with Janis’s dad and Sarah.

 

It’s not supposed to be, but Janis’s dad is insistent that Janis starts getting to know Sarah—it’s now been five months since Janis had found out that they were dating—and when the idea of dinner is brought up Janis instantly agrees on the one condition that she can bring Karen with her. Her dad reluctantly agrees and Janis calls Karen to set the date.

 

The plan is to tell the adults that they’re dating and see how Sarah reacts. They both feel ready to start letting others know, and Janis can’t have her dad dating someone who’s homophobic. There’s absolutely no way.

 

It’s a fancy restaurant and Janis feels out of place in her oversized jacket and jeans. She waits outside as the adults head in, and leans against the wall as she waits for Karen to arrive.

 

Janis feels even more out of place when Karen turns up wearing a sparkling dress and heels that make her taller than Janis.

 

“You look beautiful,” Janis grins, pausing to wave off Mr. Smith. She grabs Karen’s hands once her dad is gone—Karen hasn’t told him yet, which Janis understands and doesn’t want to ruin—and looks up into Karen’s eyes. “How did I get so lucky?”

 

“Stop it!” Karen whines, but Janis notices her blushing. “I love you, but you’re way too soppy sometimes.”

 

They share a short kiss before they enter and join Janis’s dad and Sarah at the table. They hold hands under the table and resist the urge to kiss each other as the dinner goes on, and they engage in a lot of small talk and questions about school.

 

Sarah, as it turns out, isn’t too bad. She’s nice enough, Janis has spoken to her a few times in the mornings when she’s ended up sleeping over although they’re never had a decent conversation, and Karen seems to like her as well. They talk about art and films and the topic of dating ends up being addressed after dessert.

 

“You’re both beautiful girls,” Sarah says, leaning her chin on her hand. “Are there any boys you’re thinking about asking to Spring Fling?”

 

Janis’s dad opens his mouth to say something but Janis shuts him up with a quick shake of the head. She’s got this.

 

“Actually I’m gay,” she says, her voice steady and chin held high and there’s a brief flash of surprise over Sarah’s face but nothing negative. “And I’m taking Karen to Spring Fling, actually. We’ve been dating for a little while.”

 

Both of the adults grin, and Janis flushes red when they start clapping. People start to look over, and Janis hides her beet-red face in Karen’s shoulder.

 

“I called it!” Sarah squeals, nudging Janis’s dad. “You owe me thirty.”

 

Janis feels happier than she has in a while as she squeezes Karen’s hand, their eyes meeting.

 

They kiss for the first time in front of other people, for the first time in front of Janis’s dad and Sarah, and it feels like a weight has been lifted from Janis’s chest.

 

* * *

 

Spring Fling rolls around quickly. Karen’s dad allows her to go considering that she’s started to get her grades up after many studying sessions in Janis’s bedroom with Damian and Cady—it’s Sarah’s idea, and all four of them end up better off for it—and they get ready for the dance at her house.

 

Just her and Janis at first, but Cady and Damian arrive about an hour later. They’re dressed in a matching suit and dress, having decided that they’d go together after neither of them could find—or really wanted to find—a date. Karen fawns over Cady’s dress whilst Damian helps to pull Janis’s hair back into a slick ponytail.

 

She allows him to put on a tiny bit of makeup before they leave, and Janis straightens her bowtie before they leave to head over to the hall. She’s never looked forward to going to a Spring Fling before—she only went because Damian had a hand in organising it—but now she can barely contain her excitement as they pull into the parking lot.

 

As they’re walking across to the entrance, Janis stops. She pulls Karen close and kisses her before pulling away and kissing her again.

 

The past this year so far has been the most confusing and stressful year in her life. She’s had to come to terms with her mom leaving and come to terms with her dad dating Sarah alongside the general stress of school. But it’s also been one of the best.

 

In the past couple of months she’s started dating Karen, she’s made a ton of new friends, she’s become closer to Damian and Cady and is working towards a friendship with Sarah too. And as her happiness had grown and she’s become more content with her life she’s stopped thinking about her mom.

 

Leaving them was her loss, not Janis’s.

 

Janis is finally thriving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> →I really hope you guys enjoyed this fic! I had a lot of fun writing it!
> 
> ⋆[pinterest.](https://pin.it/axdt62ze5gutav)  
>  ⋆[twitter.](https://twitter.com/crowning_gloryy)


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